An upcoming interview with filmmaker JJ Abrams will span the entirety of his career, and that means it includes significant statements about his work on the latest Star Wars trilogy. From the sound of things, 17 months of distance from his last Star Wars film, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, have given him either the clarity or the cushion needed to speak frankly on what the film arguably flubbed.
Ahead of the full interview's publication—which takes advantage of the upcoming 10th-anniversary Blu-ray of Abrams' Super 8—Collider released an excerpt on Wednesday focusing on his directing and co-writing work on both Episodes VII and IX. The takeaway seems loud and clear: the new trilogy as a whole, which he bookended, would have benefited from more consistency.
Abrams' quotes in isolation may sound like he's speaking about the entirety of his career, but they're specifically in response to Collider's questions about the director and writer hand-off between entries in the "Rey trilogy." His first answer includes a bigger-picture estimation about best-laid plans, hinting to issues with a single actor or when "a relationship as written doesn't quite work."
“Having a plan is the most critical thing”
By contrast, "other things that you think like, 'Oh that's a small moment' or 'That's a one-episode character' suddenly become a hugely important part of the story," Abrams says. With a full pandemic-based lockdown behind him, Abrams says he has had more time to work with writers to develop upcoming content, and here's how he described the "lesson" he has recently learned:
You have to plan things as best you can, and you always need to be able to respond to the unexpected. And the unexpected can come in all sorts of forms, and I do think that there’s nothing more important than knowing where you’re going.
Yet, he's careful to admit that a specific plan doesn't necessarily guarantee success, especially when "we weren't allowed to [execute ideas] the way we wanted to," though he doesn't clarify whether he means an issue where the House of Mouse shot down a Star Wars-related plan of his own. (We know of at least one case when that happened, in the form of a rocky mid-production change of hands for Solo: A Star Wars Story.)
When pressed on what's better, plan or no plan, Abrams picks "plan," telling Collider: